Totally Fit from DKUS

The Dancer's Diet
Top ballerina and author of TOTALLY FIT,
Deborah Bull shares the secrets of a diet that keeps
her in shape

Like many dancers, Deborah Bull admits to having had a 'special' relationship with food. In her first book, TOTALLY FIT, just published by Dorling Kindersley, Deborah shows how she ended the constant battle with her body by adopting an approach to eating and exercise based on simple principles and an understanding of her own physiology. Here, Deborah tells us how she developed a diet and exercise plan that changed her life.

"One in every four adults in Western Europe is overweight; in the United States, this figure is as high as one in three. It is hardly surprising that we have an obsession with diet. For some of us, getting thin has become an all-consuming passion, and there is apparently no limit to what we will endure in the hope of losing weight.

MIRACLE DIETS
DON'T EXIST
The sad truth, however, is that where diets are concerned, miracles don't exist. If a diet makes you eat less, it will also make you lose weight. Unfortunately, you won't lose it permanently. As soon as you come off the diet and begin to eat normally again, the weight creeps back and, before long, you are back where you started."

The idea of taking advice on diet from a ballet dancer might seem a little strange. After all, aren't dancers naturally blessed with perfect bodies? "Dancers, who in reality are of the same flesh and blood as everyone else, are usually fighting the same battle with their bodies. Until recently, I was no exception. For the first twelve years of my professional life, I was in constant conflict with my body, struggling to maintain the sylph-like silhouette of a ballerina while still having enough energy to get up and dance. The two requirements did not seem compatible.

ENERGY LOSS
NOT WEIGHT LOSS
I was born with classic 'pear' shape and what seemed like an unconquerable tendency to gain weight. I tried every trick in the book, vainly hoping that I would burn off the excess fat by eating fewer calories than I needed. Yet the only thing I consistently managed to lose was the energy I needed in my work. Some diets were more successful than others and, occasionally, the weight would drop off, but the end result was always the same: within a week or so, it was back.

LEARNING TO SEE
FOOD AS FUEL
I had almost given up the fight when I met Torje Eike in 1993. With his expert knowledge of the way the body works, he introduced me to a concept of eating based on physiology: fact, rather than fiction. All my previous convictions about diet were turned on their head. For a long time I had avoided bread, pasta and other forms of carbohydrates in the belief that they were fattening, but Torje insisted that they were precisely the foods I should be eating - they were the source of energy I so badly needed. It was this connection between food and fuel that started me on the journey of discovery. I gave up the search for a magic formula for weight loss, and finally found what I was looking for in the physiology of the human body itself.

Losing and controlling weight became no more than a question of accepting that the body runs better on some fuels than others. If like me, you thought dieting was about self-deprivation, starvation and agonising sessions in the gym, you're in for a very pleasant surprise: losing weight is not about the things you should not do, it is about the things you should do."